The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has announced that the complete collection of Canadian Industrial Design registrations is now available via the Canadian Industrial Designs Database. The database can be accessed and searched through the CIPO website: http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/sc_mrksv/cipo. Searches can be conducted using criteria such as title, classification, current owner, interested parties, description, status and registration date.
CIPO originally launched the Canadian Industrial Designs Database in December 2005, but at that time, the database only included about 10,000 designs dating back to June 15, 2002. In contrast, now that the database contains the complete collection of Industrial Design registrations, over 110,000 Canadian industrial designs are electronically accessible on CIPO’s website dating back to December 1861. Pending applications that have not yet been registered continue to be confidential until their registration.
The upgraded Canadian Industrial Designs Database is a valuable resource for anyone who needs to conduct patentability or registrability searches to assess the prospects of obtaining a patent or design registration for a new invention or design. Similarly, the database is an additional tool for those conducting validity searches to investigate the validity of a particular issued patent or design registration.
David A. Gileff, Vancouver